The Creation of a Chatbot
A blend of culture, personality types and innovation
The chatbot has gone from technological innovation to a fixture in the digital world. The earliest avatars were entirely functional, but they have evolved to be more conversational and human. Creating a chatbot can seem like a deceptively simple task when it is, in fact, multifaceted and influenced by ever-evolving factors.
We set out to achieve this with a chatbot for the North American region, catering specifically to HR queries. A basic digital companion that answered employees’ questions in a manner they found helpful, yet pleasing to interact with. Before diving into the creation of this bot, we did some digging into the people it would be helping. The results? Surprising!
But why bother with such a study? Why not build on what we already know of chatbots from our experience in India? According to Dr. Liraz Margalit, Clicktale, “interacting with chatbots creates in our brains a new model which results in a new state of mind.” People may be aware that they are interacting with a computer, but the brain thinks of it as companionship.
“Interacting with chatbots creates in our brains a new model which results in a new state of mind.”
Dr. Liraz Margalit, Clicktale
For a satisfying experience, this companionship should align with the local culture. Given the way people communicate differently across the world, with each region boasting its own cultural idiosyncrasies, this is a key element. We dived into North America’s characteristic traits with a survey, focus group discussions, and secondary research on their cultural nuances.
Our audience was a representative collection comprised of varied demographics, user needs, and roles/functions based in North America. The survey revealed our target audience prefers direct conversation and efficiency over casual conversation. The bot created was a result of these results and psychological theory.
We utilized the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, a psychological tool that categorizes 16 personality types. Take a look at the two types we selected based on our primary and secondary research below.
LOGISTICIAN
(ISTJ A/T)
Practical and fact-minded individuals,
who favor reliability and accuracy
Principled diplomats with an optimistic outlook and focus on empathy
We took these personalities out for a walk and shaped our bot. The final bot our North American counterparts will be talking to will be aware of its status as a bot and will not pretend to be human. However, this will not result in a compromise on understanding, and it will exhibit empathy for employees’ needs while being knowledgeable in all the areas that employees require help with. This bot will present relevant information quickly and concisely, and in the long term, it will pre-empt employees’ needs as well as direct them to secondary support channels when it is unable to help them. It’s a tall order, but our creation seems up to the challenge!
1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2016/10/23/chatbots-will-be-your-new-best-friend/#51e40e8fa245